I do agree we are all accountable for our choices BUT government intervention has certainly reduced the number of smokers over the last 6 years (which in turn increases the number of healthy people working and paying taxes and reduces the burden on the NHS so must be good for society right?): If the British government would have said "Oh **** the smokers, health, they are all adults and, hey, we get lots of money from tobacco tax so let's leave things as they are" then I can assure you the graph would have gone in the other direction the last 6 years. The elected government has a duty to provide legislation to protect its citizens - be that via the armed forces, police force or even controlling access to vices proven to be addictive (e.g. smoking bans, increased tax on alcohol and tobacco, banning of "drinking flat" and other tricks to increase alcohol consumption - although more could be done - and yes, controlling access to highly addictive gambling machines). Let's be honest - would the world really be a poorer place without FOBTs? I think not ............................
You don't take crack or heroin by accident then get addicted do you? Surely you choose to take it knowing full well what it is and what it does. And if it was made legal does that mean more people would use them? That's pretty narrow minded if you ask me. I've never taken drugs or ****ed a prossie so if i went to Amsterdam i'm not all of a sudden gonna start paying for sex and smoking drugs just because its legal over there. I sort of understand what you're trying to get at but it does come down to choice and if there's people you say have no choice because of their personality or lack of self control then i'm sorry but its still their fault they still make a choice. They can't then just write that choice of by saying, 'its not my fault its just the way i am'.
The Hauptbahnhof here is 'business as usual', stocked-up on a couple of items we needed, that's all that was necessary till Thursday. Good job too, Bahnhof prices are pretty 'proud', I can tell you! Would not have minded a trip down to Salzburg, always enjoyable. Nice sunny day here, bit cold but OK. Have a good day off!
I’m sure it is. My point though is I wouldn’t do those things just because they’re legal. I’d make a choice to do them or not
The reason they wont take your 50 e/w is because those machines are a no risk 2 billion a year business for them so they dont need to take bets anymore, especially low risk e/w bets. The machines are a ****ing disgrace and the new restrictions are utterly pointless, yes the people who use them are idiots but they should be banned completely from bookies, go to the casino if you want to play roulette. Couple of weeks ago I was in a shop and there was a chinese girl sitting feeding the thing 50 a time with a bundle in her hand, ran out and must have went to her husband for a reload because she came back in with another bundle a minute later. I said to the guy working in the shop, its a ****ing disgrace you just sit and watch that, he said it wasnt his job.
Perhaps she was laundering money Boris? You take a hit with the losses of course but I guess such machines are an untraceable way of cleaning dirty money.
Obviously that occurred to me as a possibility, but her face and demeanour suggested otherwise, she was clearly losing the plot. Those chinese takeway owners always have bundles of cash and are mad gamblers. The people money laundering is another reason why they shouldnt be sitting back and watching them do it.
Sadly it's true Oddy, there will be a ton of laundering going on but with the current rules there isn't a lot that can be done about it. I would swing a guess that in the near future bookies will no longer be a cash business and any transactions will need to go through some sort of account/card, that way they can trace the origin of the funds.
I work in a bookies and I hate those FOBT machines with a passion. We have an alert that flashes up every 3 minutes or so telling us how long a player has been on a machine and how much he has spent. Everytime we see an 'alert', we have to go and speak to the customer and ask if they are ok, if they want a coffee etc. One customer had put in about £300 and had got it up to £1800. I went up to him for a 'informal chat' as we are supposed and expected to do. I said in passing, that if it was me I would collect and walk away and treat my family. I got told to 'Piss off and mind my own business'. 15 minutes later he thumped the machine and walked out with nothing. We get to told to help ans assist machine players, but then they expect us to run machine competitions for punters to play. I would happily wave goodbye to to the machines in the shop. Sadly they make so much money for my 'big boss', I can't ever see the bloody things going.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised by this. Money laundering at race tracks is huge business and so difficult to Police
Ladies ladies calm down Stick/Badger I did say I do see your point of views, and I also find this hand on my knee stuff ridiculous because you can't compare today's mentality with the mentality of 20-30 years ago, a little grope etc back then was the norm, nowadays its sexual assault. Times have changed. The point I was trying to make was, taking away or reducing a temptation helps to lessen and minimize the risk of people doing things, and would reduce the number of people addicted to FOBT's, which I see no negative towards and I don't see how anybody can.
